Peter John‘s recent book investigates how to get the best out of nudge theories, considering positive behaviour changes in recycling, volunteering, voting, and petitioning, and provides some unexpected insights about some interventions, finds Sander van der Linden. Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: Experimenting with Ways to Change Civic Behaviour. Peter John, Sarah Cotterill, Alice Moseley, Liz Richardson, Graham Smith, Gerry Stoker and Corinne Wales. Bloomsbury Academic Publishing. September 2011

van der Linden, Sander

English

Peter John’s latest book investigates how to get the best out of nudge, considering positive behaviour changes in recycling, volunteering, voting, and petitioning, and provides some unexpected insights about some interventions, finds Sander van der Linden

LSE Research Online

blogs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2011/11/20/book-review-nudge-nudge-think-think-experimenting-with-ways-to-change-civic-behaviour/Book Review: Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: Experimentingwith Ways to Change Civic BehaviourNov 20 2011Peter John’s latest book investigates how to get the best out of nudge, considering positivebehaviour changes in recycling, volunteering, voting, and petitioning, and provides someunexpected insights about some interventions, finds Sander van der Linden..Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: Experimenting with Ways to Change Civic Behaviour. ByPeter John, Sarah Cotterill, Alice Moseley, Liz Richardson, Graham Smith, GerryStoker and Corinne Wales. Bloomsbury Academic Publishing. September 2011.In 2008, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein managed to get the attention ofpublic policy makers with a behavioural change strategy that they referred toas ‘nudge’ – a term that has now become a buzzword in the behaviouralpublic policy sphere. Nudge draws heavily on the behavioural economicsliterature and argues that by changing people’s choice environment, citizenscan be gently ‘nudged’ into acting in ways that are more beneficial to not onlythemselves but also to others. Over the years, several criticisms have beenraised with regard to the use of ‘nudge’ strategies. Public activists havereferred to nudge as being ‘manipulative’ and a form of ‘subliminal mind-control’. In addition, behavioural researchers have argued that the effects of‘nudge’ are rather marginal and relatively short-lived.In findings ways to improve ‘nudge‘-based strategies and in search ofalternative solutions Peter John and colleagues join the behavioural changebandwagon with their book Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: Experimenting withWays to Change Civic Behaviour. The authors start off with a brief normativedebate about the government’s role in changing civic behaviour and end thefirst chapter with an explanation of how their ‘think’ strategy differs from‘nudge’. Nudge essentially assumes (or reckons) that individuals are‘imperfect’ and need assistance in making the right decisions. Moreover, the government should act as a‘teacher and offer guidance’  by steering citizens down the path that is most beneficial to them and society atlarge. As a result, the individual is somewhat regarded as ‘incapable’ and  essentially excluded from thebehavioural change process. ‘Think’ on the other hand assumes that individuals can step away from day-to-day life and reflect on a wide range of public policy choices. It assumes that people are ‘knowledge hungry’,‘learn to process new information’ and reach ‘new heights of reflection’.  Think requires active deliberation and assumes that individuals would want to engage in debates about important  issues with other membersof society. Thus, while nudge focuses on individuals and the design of a choice environment where the costof behavioural change is minimized, think strategies stimulate group participation and encourages the designof democratic institutional platforms that support citizen-lead investigations.It is surprisingly refreshing to read that the authors stress and support the role of evidence-based publicpolicy and endorse the use of  randomized controlled experiments as an unparalleled way of inferringcausality and judging  the usefulness of various public behavioural interventions.  In fact, the main purposeof the book is to investigate the potential of nudge and think strategies by means of conducting experiments.In doing so, the authors discuss a range of important civic behaviours, including: recycling, volunteering,voting, petitioning, giving, donating, debating, including and linking.Yet, it is somewhat disappointing to find out that the overall significance of the authors’ ‘nudge experiments’are rather unremarkable. The results indicate that initial positive changes in the aforementioned behavioursvaried between 1 and 9 percent points (with 9% being a rather optimistic upper bound). While the authorsconclude that these results validate the usefulness of ‘nudge’ and ‘think’ interventions, to the more criticalreader, they rather confirm the marginal effects of nudge strategies and in this regard, the book brings littlenew evidence to the table. Furthermore, when reading through the first five chapters, one is led to believethat this is a book about ‘nudge’ rather than anything else. Out of the 9 experiments the authors discuss,only 3 are purely about testing ‘think’ interventions.Along the way some hope is vested in the belief that think-strategies will complement and improve upon thenudge-results. Yet, when the reader finally gets to the think-based interventions, it is equally disappointing tofind out that some of these were in fact ‘design experiments’. Design experiments lack many of the clear-cutbenefits that are inherent to controlled experiments – making it harder to discern specific effects. It is alsorather unsatisfying to find out that, in the context of e.g. organ donations, employing a mixed design (i.e.combining a nudge and think strategy) actually decreased  donation registration rates by a stunning 15%. Itappears that getting people to think and actively debate such controversial topics can actually backfire byproviding convincing arguments as to why not to donate. Thus, in this regard ‘think’ strategies are likely tosuffer from the same short-comings as ‘nudge’ (e.g. in the author’s recycling experiment, the ‘socialinformation nudge‘ is likely to have primed some people to consider that they were actually recycling muchmore than their peers). The second donating experiment (which simply adjusted the default) did book somesuccess, yet the informed reader might wonder where the novelty is here, as changing registration defaultsis one of the oldest tricks in the book.All in all, the experiments performed by Peter John and colleagues do provide some interesting (unexpected)insights about a range of interventions and their book makes a good first start in trying to mix and matchdifferent solutions in attempt to change civic behaviour. In sum, Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think not only informsthe reader about how nudge and think strategies can be combined, but also about what the potentialbenefits and drawbacks of such strategies are for a range of public behaviours. In addition, the book makesanother useful contribution by informing the reader about the kind of cost-benefit calculations that areassociated with various interventions. While a deeper understanding of human behaviour (that going beyondbehavioural economics) is often lacking (i.e. nudge and think assumptions are probably both at equallyunrealistic ends of the human behaviour spectrum) the authors deliver on what they set out to achieve: theyrefrain from entering into a complex academic debate about how to change public behaviour. Instead, theyprovide a good practical read for anyone who is interested in the bottom line; “what works, and whatdoesn’t?”.Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: Experimenting with Ways to Change Civic Behaviour. By Peter John,Sarah Cotterill, Alice Moseley, Liz Richardson, Graham Smith, Gerry Stoker and Corinne Wales.Bloomsbury Academic Publishing. September 2011.Find this book: Google Books Amazon

Book review: nudge, nudge, think, think: experimenting with ways to change civic behaviour

blogs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2012/06/23/nudge-nudge-think-think-peter-john/Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: experimenting with ways tochange civic behaviourPeter John‘s recent book investigates how to get the best out of nudge theories,considering positive behaviour changes in recycling, volunteering, voting, andpetitioning, and provides some unexpected insights about some interventions,finds Sander van der Linden.Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: Experimenting with Ways to Change CivicBehaviour. Peter John, Sarah Cotterill, Alice Moseley, Liz Richardson, GrahamSmith, Gerry Stoker and Corinne Wales. Bloomsbury Academic Publishing.September 2011.Find this book:  In 2008, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein managed to get the attentionof public policy makers with a behavioural change strategy that theyreferred to as ‘nudge’ – a term that has now become a buzzword in thebehavioural public policy sphere. Nudge draws heavily on the behaviouraleconomics literature and argues that by changing people’s choiceenvironment, citizens can be gently ‘nudged’ into acting in ways that aremore beneficial to not only themselves but also to others. Over the years,several criticisms have been raised with regard to the use of ‘nudge’strategies. Public activists have referred to nudge as being ‘manipulative’and a form of ‘subliminal mind-control’. In addition, behaviouralresearchers have argued that the effects of ‘nudge’ are rather marginaland relatively short-lived.In findings ways to improve ‘nudge‘-based strategies and in search ofalternative solutions Peter John and colleagues join the behavioural change bandwagon withtheir book Nudge, Nudge, Think, Think: Experimenting with Ways to Change CivicBehaviour. The authors start off with a brief normative debate about the government’s role inchanging civic behaviour and end the first chapter with an explanation of how their ‘think’strategy differs from ‘nudge’. Nudge essentially assumes (or reckons) that individuals are‘imperfect’ and need assistance in making the right decisions. Moreover, the government shouldact as a ‘teacher and offer guidance’  by steering citizens down the path that is most beneficial tothem and society at large. As a result, the individual is somewhat regarded as ‘incapable’ and essentially excluded from the behavioural change process. ‘Think’ on the other hand assumes thatindividuals can step away from day-to-day life and reflect on a wide range of public policy choices. Itassumes that people are ‘knowledge hungry’, ‘learn to process new information’ and reach ‘newheights of reflection’.  Think requires active deliberation  and assumes that individuals would want toengage in debates about important  issues with other members of society. Thus, while nudge focuseson individuals and the design of a choice environment where the cost of behavioural change isminimized, think strategies stimulate group participation and encourages the design of democraticinstitutional platforms that support citizen-lead investigations.It is surprisingly refreshing to read that the authors stress and support the role of evidence-based publicpolicy and endorse the use of  randomized controlled experiments as an unparalleled way of inferringcausality and judging  the usefulness of various public behavioural interventions.  In fact, the mainpurpose of the book is to investigate the potential of nudge and think strategies by means ofconducting experiments. In doing so, the authors discuss a range of important civic behaviours,including: recycling, volunteering, voting, petitioning, giving, donating, debating, including and linking.Yet, it is somewhat disappointing to find out that the overall significance of the authors’ ‘nudgeexperiments’ are rather unremarkable. The results indicate that initial positive changes in theaforementioned behaviours varied between 1 and 9 percent points (with 9% being a rather optimisticupper bound). While the authors conclude that these results validate the usefulness of ‘nudge’ and‘think’ interventions, to the more critical reader, they rather confirm the marginal effects of nudgestrategies and in this regard, the book brings little new evidence to the table. Furthermore, whenreading through the first five chapters, one is led to believe that this is a book about ‘nudge’ rather thananything else. Out of the 9 experiments the authors discuss, only 3 are purely about testing ‘think’interventions.Along the way some hope is vested in the belief that think-strategies will complement and improveupon the nudge-results. Yet, when the reader finally gets to the think-based interventions, it is equallydisappointing to find out that some of these were in fact ‘design experiments’. Design experiments lackmany of the clear-cut benefits that are inherent to controlled experiments – making it harder to discernspecific effects. It is also rather unsatisfying to find out that, in the context of e.g. organ donations,employing a mixed design (i.e. combining a nudge and think strategy) actually decreased  donationregistration rates by a stunning 15%. It appears that getting people to think and actively debate suchcontroversial topics can actually backfire by providing convincing arguments as to why not to donate.Thus, in this regard ‘think’ strategies are likely to suffer from the same short-comings as ‘nudge’ (e.g. inthe author’s recycling experiment, the ‘social information nudge‘ is likely to have primed some peopleto consider that they were actually recycling much more than their peers). The second donatingexperiment (which simply adjusted the default) did book some success, yet the informed reader mightwonder where the novelty is here, as changing registration defaults is one of the oldest tricks in thebook.All in all, the experiments performed by Peter John and colleagues do provide some interesting(unexpected) insights about a range of interventions and their book makes a good first start in trying tomix and match different solutions in attempt to change civic behaviour. In sum, Nudge, Nudge, Think,Think not only informs the reader about how nudge and think strategies can be combined, but alsoabout what the potential benefits and drawbacks of such strategies are for a range of publicbehaviours. In addition, the book makes another useful contribution by informing the reader about thekind of cost-benefit calculations that are associated with various interventions. While a deeperunderstanding of human behaviour (that going beyond behavioural economics) is often lacking (i.e.nudge and think assumptions are probably both at equally unrealistic ends of the human behaviourspectrum) the authors deliver on what they set out to achieve: they refrain from entering into a complexacademic debate about how to change public behaviour. Instead, they provide a good practical readfor anyone who is interested in the bottom line; “what works, and what doesn’t?”.This review was originally published on the British Politics and Policy at LSE blog on 20th November2011.——————————————————————————————-Sander van der Linden is a doctoral researcher in applied social psychology at LSE’s GranthamResearch Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Sander’s research is concerned withdesigning and evaluating behavioural interventions. He studies the psychological factors andconditions under which people are more likely to change their behaviour (i.e. in a more pro-social / pro-environmental manner). Part of his research also deals with theories of dual-processing in thebrain. Read more reviews by Sander.Related posts:1. Book Review: Parliamentary Socialisation: Learning the Ropes or Determining Behaviour? byMichael Rush and Philip Giddings (6.6)2. How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism (6.4)3. Climate change and violence: a bleak picture but there’s still room for optimism (5.3)

Nudge, nudge, think, think: experimenting with ways to change civic behaviour

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